Descent / film score

Descent / film score

DESCENT / FILM SCORE

DIRECTOR: TALIA LUGACYOLE: COMPOSER, PERFORMER

The score for Descent came as a complete surprise and pushed me into exciting new musical territory.

I was asked to compose a dark dub-influenced track for a club scene in the film (heard in the featurette above). In the following weeks my conversations with Talia and the film's music supervisor, close friend Stephanie Diaz-Matos, led to additional scenes and before we all realized it, I was hired as the film's composer.

Thanks to Talia and Stephanie, the film has an incredible soundtrack of and features some beautiful compositions from my buddy Dustin O'Halloran. My underscore complements the songs but is most evident during the violent and graphic sections of the film that created so much controversy when it was released.

The most challenging part of the process was channeling the mental state of the main character Maya, which becomes increasingly dark over the course of the film. Like hearing voices in your head, the tones are felt more than heard. The visceral, raw and dissonant textures were created with a mixture of bowed electric guitar, analog synthesis and sub-bass frequencies that are literally gut-wrenching in the theater. Since the film was rated NC-17, this wonderful scene (deleted from the final cut but included in the special features) is one of the few I can share.